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fruit

The past few months I have been on a serious breakfast food kick. Cereal and toast just are not cutting it for me anymore. When I wake up, all I think about is bacon, eggs, waffles, and of course, blueberry muffins…well honestly I’m mostly thinking about bacon – but aren’t we all?

As much as I love my carbs covered in sugary warm syrup, there is something so comforting about a warm blueberry muffin right out of the oven. Not to say that blueberry muffins are healthy by any means, but you get what I’m saying. I’ve made my fair share of blueberry muffins over the past few years and each recipe is a little different than the last, but I think I’ve finally found my favorite one.

The best part about this recipe is that it requires minimal effort! Confession – I’m a little zombie like in the morning. I don’t want to speak, I just want my espresso and a delicious breakfast pastry and until that happens I just don’t want to tell you how I slept or what my plans are for the day. I love you, I’m sorry, just give me a muffin. So when I can wake up and just whip up some muffins quickly in silence, there just are no words for that. No words at all.

If you have not tried baking/cooking with brown butter yet, you just really don’t know what you are missing. Honestly, it may sound weird and unnecessary but I assure you it is life changing and completely necessary. Something as simple as a blueberry muffin can be totally transformed into utter greatness by essentially cooking butter until the milk solids start to get toasted or burned a little bit. Normally burning in the kitchen is a huge no-no but I give you permission to burn two things in the kitchen – marshmallows and butter for browned butter purposes.

In this recipe the browned butter adds just another layer of flavor in what is already a great muffin to begin with. Add in some fresh blueberries and a streusel topping and you’ll be struggling to eat cereal from a box for breakfast too.

Before this lovely recipe I was always a little “eh” about lemon recipes. Sometimes it was really refreshing, sure, like after a hot day in the summer a nice lemon sorbet would be fabulous! But when it really came down to it, chocolate was always the answer. Always.

“Do you want the lemon meringue pie or the brownie covered in caramel and pecans?”

Stupid question. Brownie. Done.

But this cake/loaf/bread, whatever you want to call it, is exceptional. Maybe it is because there is lemon in the cake, then a lemon syrup is poured over it, and then to top it off a lemon glaze. So yeah, there is a lot of lemon, but if you’re going to go for lemon you may as well go hard!

The cake is so moist and packs a little punch in your first bite, but not over powering, it’s just the right amount.

It rained all day today with lightening and thunder so bad that the house vibrated. So this cake was a nice reminder that summer is almost here, and that this crazy weather is just a mini speed bump.

If you’re going to bake this in a decorative loaf pan, beware! I oiled that thing up like it was nobody’s business, but the top of it still stuck in there!

Luckily, the second one came out perfectly! Lesson learned: decorative pans just aren’t worth the grief for this.

Tip: Wait 30 minutes for the cake to cool because when you pour that glaze on it’s going to soak into a warm cake, like mine did. I really wanted to wait, I really did. It would have looked so pretty if I had waited. But I couldn’t…I’m sorry.

Two years ago around this time I was seriously considering becoming an Environmental Engineer. I was taking Intro to Chemical & Environmental Engineering, was halfway through the Chemistry series, and moseying along through Calculus. I was so sure that my love and passion for the environment meant that I needed to study how to fix it hands on, and that sounded like a good idea on paper, right? So what if I hated math…(ha!)

My desk was constantly covered in sheets of paper while I tried to work through monotonous calculus problems. My idea of a break would be to scroll through TasteSpotting for an hour, envious of people who blogged about food. I was forcing myself down a path that made me miserable because I didn’t realize I could do something else and still incorporate my love for the environment.

Fast forward to today where my life is not even comparable to how it was two years ago. I walked into my room today to a mess on my desk which included: colored paper, glue sticks, 5 cookbooks, hand written notes about ideas for recipes I want to try, and a camera. I’ve somehow become the person I secretly wanted to be without even realizing it until now. I take classes that genuinely interest me now, I bake amazing & beautiful desserts, and I have people who support my creative side and my academic side.

The point of all of this is to explain how we change. Our ideas change, our feelings about people change, our tastes change, and sometimes you just need someone to remind you that change is good. Change leads you to a new form of happiness.

Two years ago, I would not have made this dessert. “It is fruity and has no chocolate in it” old Madeline would have said. But, despite lacking chocolate, this dessert is quite pleasing to both the eyes and the mouth.

I hope if you are hesitant and worried about betraying your near and dear friend, chocolate, that you’ll give this a try and then go back to your go-to chocolate cupcake recipe. You won’t be disappointed.